Minnesota Joe

Don't ask me, that is why I posted the question.

Seriously, if you need some external fact to point to, maybe it would be the fact that these rules seem to work.

The AntiChris

But it's not an external fact. The "fact" that "these rules" seem to work is itself an opinion.

Chris

Wiploc

He says some stuff I really like, he says some stuff I'm awkwardly skeptical about, and he says some stuff I purely don't understand. Whether he says this particular stuff, I couldn't say.



That there's a confused sentence. At least it confused me. When we talk about morality, we're either talking about what I've been talking about earlier (sacrifice now for greater return later, and personal sacrifice for group benefit) or we're not. Let's nail that down. If that is the "morality" we're talking about, let's call it wMorality (morality as defined by wiploc). Otherwise, let's call it xMorality (we're still using the word "morality," but with no particular definition).

So, if we fail to agree on what "morality" means, you see it as a failure to label xmoral rules or wmoral rules? Because I'm thinking the wmoral rules are identified, and all we need to decide is whether the word "moral" (without the x or the w) is the label for those rules. Having failed (at least so far) to make that determination, it seems to me that we have unambiguously failed to find a word (aside, now, from "wmoral"---which ain't never going to catch on) for wmoral rules.

On the other hand, if you are talking about some other rules (xmoral rules) that might be called "moral" by some people, then I'll agree with you: our problem isn't that we don't know the name; our problem is that we don't know what the name refers to.



I'm not saying that xmoral reasoning is objective. All I'm saying is that a case could be made for calling wmoral reasoning objective according to the confused and inconsistently-applied standards of objectivity that I hear tossed around.



I hope I've never called my morality objective. I don't know what that would mean. Here's my position: When Christians come around disparaging atheist morality as relative, as non-objective, I challenge them to give me a test of objectivity that their morality passes and mine doesn't. It is my position that an atheist's morality is as objective as the next guy's. So far, none of the theists has come up with anything to make me doubt that.



I think that's an objective truth. If so, that makes morality objective---if that's what we mean by "morality."



I don't care what sense. I've never figured out what Christians mean when they they call their morality "objective." But I defy them to produce a definition of "objective" that describes their morality without describing yours and mine.

crc

The AntiChris

But even if we accept your version of morality I don't see how it helps. We're still faced with different interpretations of "greater return" and "group benefit".
It might be "some other rules (xmoral rules)" or simply different interpretations of your rules (wmoral rules). The problem isn't that we don't know what the name refers to, it's that there is no single entity to which the name refers.

But why bother at all if the term is essentially meaningless in this particular context. :huh:
Sorry. I obviously misinterpreted you when you said:
I see now that you're not actually saying your morality is objective.
Personally, I'm comfortable with the notion of a non-objective morality and would be perfectly happy to defend it to any theist.
Agreed.

Chris

BDS

Here's what I like about Christian Morality: it refers to a state of the soul (I admit it isn't objective, or, at least, can't be objectively determined.)

Atheist morality TENDS to revolve around behavior, and its effect on others.

It seems to me that if we think about "good vs. evil", we are referring to a state of the soul (or personality, or whatever non-religious word we prefer). Behaviors can be "good or bad", or "harmful or helpful", but they cannot be "good or evil".

So wiploc's definition (sacrifice now for greater return later, and personal sacrifice for group benefit) is not one that makes much sense to me. Such sacrifices can be helpful to the group. But that is "good" as opposed to "bad" -- not "good" as opposed to "evil". (Neitzsche said, "I have destroyed the distinction between good and evil, but not that between good and bad.")

Evil requires (even for us atheists) an evil essence, not merely harmful behavior. The motive, and the motive for that motive are essential.


(By the way, to explain the "state of the soul" theory, a simple explanation would be that a person who WOULD do an evil act, but lacks the opportunity, is just as "evil" as the person who has the opportunity, and performs the act.)

LinuxPup

Atheist morality is based on self, and is totally subjective. Might makes right.

JamesBannon

Linuxpup,
I'm an atheist and I in no way subscribe to that morality. In fact, you Christians do for whatever God wills is right for you. Why? because He is all-powerful.

Wiploc

If you've talked to atheists, you know this is false. If you aren't lying, you are in reckless disregard of the truth.

crc

llanitedave

That sounds so much like religious morality -- where God is the self, and has the might.

You aren't able to climb out of your shallow box, are you, Pup?

I thought Linux people were more flexible than that.

Wiploc

But for any given one of those interpretations, a given moral rule objectively does (or doesn't) produce that greater benefit.

(A couple of points. One is that you can see how easily you made the mistake of thinking I'm a moral objectivist. Said differently: I probably got sloppy and said something that absolutely justified your thinking that. Second point: My primary motive here at IIDB is learning/teaching how to cope with fraudulent Christian arguments. We may have been talking past each other a bit, with you looking for the underlying truth of morality and me looking for how to parry certain moral attacks.)



Yes, different people mean different things by "moral." Worse, individual people mean different things from minute to minute, depending on what corner you've backed them into. And a lot of people don't mean anything, even though many of them don't know it. They talk about morality the way I talk about the square root of negative one: We manipulate symbols without conprehending them.



Christian moral claims are false and fraudulent; I'm learning to parry and riposte.

It's not that I don't want to know the underlying truth of moral reality, but in the case of morality, I don't think the underlying reality is there. Since everyone means different things by the word "moral" (when they mean anything at all), any underlying reality I could learn would be true only about a single person.



Cool.

For myself it is different. After seeing William Lane Craig slaughter a helpless atheist in public debate in front of one of his packed audiences. I am mostly interested in arguments that would play well in front of a similar audience. I don't know that my objective morality is any different than your non-objective morality, but I suspect that billing it as objective (as objective as William Lane Craig's, anyway) would make it far more palatable to the people I imagine myself addressing.

crc